Several weeks passed as Abe familiarized himself with his new body. It was stronger than he had expected, and he constantly found new mushrooms throughout the forest.

Within his reserves, he now carried 162 Jade Caps, 327 Lance Stems, 146 Sponge Buttons, 43 Speckled Mantles, and 8 Ninth Stalks. The Ninth Stalks added transformation to his growing list of mushroom essences he could absorb and turn into abilities.

He had tested them all briefly despite his senses telling him what they were.

Stronger creatures like the beast he had slain would obviously take more, but the forest animals succumbed to the poison and paralyzing toxins of the mushrooms nearly instantly. The healing was effective, though not nearly as strong as Miss Nia’s blood had been. The spore clouds were both concealing and miasmic, causing anything he had tested them on to break into coughing fits the moment they entered it. The transformative Ninth Stalks increased the strength and number of the fungi fibers now running through his body, doubling his size and turning his hide hard like iron.

But as powerful as Mor’kel’s mushroom-derived abilities were, his body was quite weak when using its mushroom form. Especially when compared to his wight form.

However, he had to be cautious. Although it only seemed to be a few, some had taken notice of his presence, and they had searched through the forest several times—sporelings like the late Mor’kel.

They were alerted to his presence whenever he used his wight form, even if he used dreamer energy to hide his deathly energy. As such, he was forced to remain in his mushroom form until he could find a means of escaping this domain.

Not that it was of great bother. He was the same person when switching between forms, and while he was slower and weaker, he was still more than powerful enough to handle himself in the forest.

Furthermore, he used his mushroom form to create a mycelium network throughout the forest. These mushroom roots gave him an almost omniscient knowledge of the forest and everything within it.

He quickly discovered that many locals had created their own networks as well, and as such, they knew of his existence. He used his mycelium injected with deathly energy to corrupt and take over these networks.

At first, he was surprised that they hadn’t mounted a more serious effort to find him, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. If he were a normal living dead, his time in this domain would be limited by his ability to get deathly energy, and he would be forced to show his hand eventually or die. Charging after him while he was still strong would put his attackers at unnecessary risk when they could just wait for him to attack.

Knowing this, Abe went quiet for a while. Hiding his presence and entirely blocking his deathly energy for weeks within a cover he found deep in the forest. This way, the inhabitants of this place would no doubt assume that their invader chose to die quietly instead of confronting them.

Abe had sensed at least 20,000 inhabitants. And while most of them were weak, there were more than enough D and even C-rank inhabitants of this world that any frontal assault would be beyond suicide. And he knew this wouldn’t be a situation he could just feed his way out of.

Awakening from his rest within the cave, Abe stretched as he passed a clear pool within the great forest. He eyed the still somewhat foreign visage looking back at him. It wasn’t Mor’kel’s stolen body anymore; it was a mushroom, but a dark purple cap with red dots and narrow, beady black eyes.

Unfortunately, while he might have absorbed the sporeling’s essence, he hadn’t taken his memory. He had learned little of how the humanoid mushroom society worked from the safety of the forest.

Gradually, as he grew confident, he stalked the boarders, watching the sporelings that farmed the lands and lived in nearby homes. They seemed simple people, going about their humble lives with little interest in the strange and magical world around them.

Occasionally, he spotted small squads of the mushroom-people armed with spears patrolling the roads. Sometimes, they were led by larger mushrooms with considerably stronger energy signals. But since his disappearance into the cave, they had ended their short forrays into the forest itself.

They had carried around the giant beast he had killed, though. He had felt their energy and sensed their mourning through it. But they weren’t vengeful, or at least not recklessly so. These creatures seemed more than happy to let energy hunger take Abe instead of risking the lives of more of their own, even if some of them burned with rage at the loss of their friend.

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At the edge of the forest, he watched the giant tree that disappeared into the fluffy white clouds that blanketed the otherwise blue sky. He could see the partially shrouded ships through the clouds, docked along the upper branches of the giant tree.

“I have a feeling this isn’t going to be easy,” he sighed to himself.

Gathering information and playing it carefully was all good, but at some point, he would need to make a move and head toward the tree.

His hunger for Miss Nia’s blood might have gone in the sense that he no longer needed to feed on it, but he still wanted to. And not just because he desired it. He felt that it would unlock something within him, strengthening his power. His wight form was, after all, granted to him by her, and while his evolution had granted him freedom, it felt incomplete.

Closing his eyes, he focused on his energy as he planted down my mycelium and melded with the forest around him. Even to himself, his energy signal was almost indistinguishable from the trees and bush around him, and it would require beings stronger than the mushroom footmen to sense his essence at this point.

“It’s almost time,” he murmured as his eyes opened.

He had altered his energy enough that the mushrooms would no longer sense anything amiss with him, but he would still be a stranger, and no amount of spying on them from afar would ever entirely overcome that.

******

Her hands stung from banging against the door, but they had left her in the pitch-black room for days now.

“Somebody, anybody, answer me. Please, I’m being held against my will,” she whimpered, falling forward and resting her head against the door. “Anyone, please.”

Soft footsteps carried across the timber floor outside, and her head perked.

“Somebody there?”

“Anita, please. Your endless complaints are getting tiresome. Scream as loud as you want; nobody is coming to help you. The sooner you get that through your head, the more pleasant your stay will be for everyone.”

“You can’t just keep me in here. I have friends, police friends. Lots of them, they’ll be looking for me. Just let me out, and I promise I won’t say a word.”

The man sighed audibly through the door, “I don’t care about your friends, and I’m certainly not scared of them. Now, please. Remain quiet, or I’ll have to come in there and discipline you. You’re lucky Mistress Katiana has asked me to keep you in one piece; otherwise, you’d be missing something by now. Understand?”

“Fuck you,” Anita whimpered, falling to her knees and covering her mouth. It was all she could do to keep herself from sobbing.

What was happening, and how were these insane people related to Abe? She hated herself for wanting to betray Abe, escape this place, and never look back, but what more could she do? And every day she spent locked up here, her thoughts drifted further from Abe and further toward hopelessness.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. For now,” the voice hissed, and footsteps echoed away.

******

Spiral towers climbed into the dark, rolling clouds that blanketed the gothic city. Tombs, satanic cathedrals, and crude stone structures continued for as long as the darkness allowed one’s vision to see.

This was Blightenfall, one of the great cities of Acheron, a crowded metropolis for the living dead.

The submarine's hull pierced through the dark clouds, and skeletal dragons mounted by knights in black, plated armor flew down beside it, their pale white skin visible through their visors.

“We even got an escort,” Kearn noted, eyeing the video feed.

“Nosferatu’s Death Guard.”

“So, he backs you then?” Kearn’s brow rose.

“Oh, I doubt that very much. But if war is coming, it's best to keep the pawns in your own hand,” Miss Nia replied, steering the vessel with subtle twists of her wrist.

“So, that’s all we are now? Pets for that ancient vampire’s game?”

“Don’t get melancholy on me now, Kearn. We haven’t lost just yet. And besides, we’ve yet to see how the pieces fall. Taking my barony strengthens Katiana but paints a target on her back. And at least we’re safe, for now.”

“And what if she offers the great Nosferatu something for your head?”

Nia shrugged, “Then I suppose that will be my destiny. The weaker force has no choice but to fight asymmetrically; this is how the game works. I either take this risk or bow. And I’d rather lose my head than bow to Katiana.”

“We agree on that much, at least,” Kearn said. “But I won’t bow to Nosferatu.”

“You’re funny sometimes, Kearn,” Miss Nia smiled. “The only one who will be forced to bow is me. And it is a small price to pay if it gives me a chance at revenge.”

Kearn gritted his teeth. He wanted to say more but knew better than to doubt his mistress's word. It wasn’t just her mastery over him that had made him such a loyal subject all these years; she had a habit of being right.

“Good boy,” she flashed her fangs. “You’ll see soon,” she said under her breath, watching the expansive palace below—its giant clock tower rising a hundred stories into the dark, crackling clouds, with swarms of winged creatures tunneling through the sky around it. This wasn’t how she usually did things, and she feared handing over her sovereignty as much as Kearn did but kept it to herself.

She could hardly believe she put so much faith in a ghoul she had just recently born into this world of undeath, but something told her that Abe would be the missing piece to this puzzle.

The reality was that her ship had sailed. She couldn’t face Katiana alone, and Nosferatu wouldn’t fight a war for her. He would either trade her for the right price or raise his banners with her as a pawn to stake his bid for the UImbrial seat. If he kept her prisoner, he could defacto rule two seats on the council, making him the strongest of the vampire lords. But she had no choice but to see this plan through now. The two skeleton dragon riders escorting them could destroy her and Kearn by themselves. Let alone if she attempted to challenge the power of Nosferatu himself.

“Our cards have been placed,” she sighed, pulling the submarine into the palace grounds, where a line of armored death guards awaited beside the hunched-over figure of Nosferatu in his flowing gown, like a hairless rat dressed as an emperor.